Back to Home

ATM Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | Amateur Telescope Making | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
Re: Grinding Problems!

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Robert May on August 9, 1999 03:27:27 UTC

My trick for finding out if a mirror is ready for the next grit is to reflect a light bulb off of the mirror and get the reflection to a medium shade of orange and then move the reflection over the surface and see if it stays the same shade of orange. When it does, it's time to go to the next grit. This works best with the finer grits. You might also want to paint the tool to keep the grits buried since you epoxied the tiles on. This will also make it easier to clean off the tool as the surface will be smooth. Glad to hear that you did take care of the scratch problem rather than live with it. Unfortunatly, you will have to spend some time with each different size grit but you should be able to go from the 400 grit to 9 micron in about 5 hours of grinding on an 8" mirror easily. You don't have to push slowly as it doesn't matter how fast you go in pushing the mirror. Give your forearms a workout and rest while preparing for the next burst of work.

Follow Ups:

    Login to Post
    Additional Information
    Google
     
    Web www.astronomy.net
    DayNightLine
    About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
    Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
    Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
    "dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
    are trademarks of John Huggins